Chapter Text
880 days before Eames dies, Arthur finds him again.
Paris
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Arthur keeps his eyes closed, wakes up slower than usual. Forgets why in the dim of the grey, breezy dawn light battering at the unshuttered windows.
One leg is out of the covers, numb with cold, foot dangling over the edge of the mattress. The other is warm, snug, bent at the knee, and when he twitches his toes the rustling is silky quiet.
His smile, half hidden by a pillow that’s pressing deep imprints in his cheek, creases his sleep stiff muscles.
He can’t feel his arms and his spine is twisted. Through his eyelashes, daybreak glitters.
Realisation, when it comes, is a flash of lightning bolting through his ribcage, tugging at his hips. He’s sitting up before his eyes can even flutter open.
The satisfying cracks of his vertebrae trill from his tailbone to his neck like the scales of a piano. He groans, gives his knuckles the same rippling maltreatment, and his smile is deep enough to split into a yawn, lion wide and loud.
He tumbles out of bed with all the grace of a walrus ashore, stumbling into the en-suite shower on unsteady feet that slide like flippers on the tiles.
When he bangs his hairline on the showerhead for the second time, scrubbing shampoo out of his stinging eyes and cursing, he stops. Takes a deep breath of lemon scented air. Carefully he clicks the water to an icy temperature that shocks his nerves into better waking up his brain.
“Fucking moron,” he mutters with badly squashed embarrassment into the water, scratches the bubbles out of his scalp and leaves the bathroom with greater care than he entered it, because God knows the last thing he needs is to crack his skull open on the toilet seat.
If nothing else, he’d never hear the end of it.
The apartment feels smaller than it has done in the five years since he first walked in after buying it, burdened with a handful of books, a PASIV and four suits. He pads through it in his socks as he fights the buttons of his shirt with numb fingers.
Nerves are eating his intestines and he’d blush at his own reflection if it would do him any good.
(It won’t.)
It isn’t that Arthur doesn’t get nervous, as most assume. It’s just that Arthur has carefully crafted his work persona around his ticks, honed his nervous tells into his everyday demeanour.
There have been very few people in Arthur’s life who could read his nerves for what they are, and two of them were his father and little sister.
The third is a man called Clarke Morton, who actually might be dead now for all Arthur knows.
The fourth is arriving in Paris today, has taken a redeye from Sydney but he’ll be in before ten all the same. Arthur would bet his right hand on it if he were a gambling man, which he isn’t.
(Most of the time.)
He dresses in relative silence, staring at the shelves that are only half filled with his own books. Sunlight creeps over the horizon through the East facing window in increments of dusky marigold and silver; is still only half risen by the time Arthur steps out onto the cobbled street below ten minutes later.
The air, crisp and dewy, sneaks under his collar as he walks at a brisk pace.
When he stops at the corner bakery that doesn’t seem to have a specific opening time – actually, it just doesn’t seem to have a closing time, much to Arthur’s like-minded delight – the young woman who has been greeting him with a cheery smile every morning for the past two weeks is as warm as ever.
She greets him with pink cheeks and bright green eyes that sparkle to match her laugh, her blonde hair tied up in a carefree knot. There’s flour on her apron, on her hands and there’s a dusting of it on her forehead that might have even Arthur a little weak at the knees on any other day.
Not today, though. Today he is distracted, and despite her usual flirting he leaves with the same efficiency with which he entered, now bearing steaming, freshly ground coffee and a flaky, oven warm croissant.
He takes a taxi to three blocks away from the warehouse, because he is both impatient and cautious. The driver eyes the beverage grasped tightly in his hand with a distrustful gaze, and continually glances at Arthur in the rear-view mirror for potential spillages the entire journey.
Arthur, for his part, ignores him.
Instead, he rests his forehead against the window, the vibrations only aggravating the tension knot at the base of his skull, and considers the day ahead.
On good days he can con himself into believing it has only been a sleepless few weeks, since the disaster of Cobol rained down upon their heads. Today, with his watch ticking sluggishly towards seven o’clock, is already feeling less and less like a good day.
It’s not a bad day, of course, couldn’t possibly be a bad day, but Arthur has been digging through the minds of others, only half the time with their permission, for eight years now. It’s been a long time since anything of his was split into merely good and bad.
Still, despite the eagerness with which he met it, today is not a good day, and therefore Arthur is finding it much more difficult to ignore the fact that it has in fact been a sleepless two years, an endless string of jobs that feel as if they have amounted to a lifetime of worrying.
(The irony of an endless string of dream jobs resulting in shadows of sleeplessness under his eyes is only painful.)
He overpays the taxi driver and walks the three blocks to the warehouse with his eyes on the ground, shoulders curving around his coffee, unsure whether he’s protecting the drink or himself.
The warehouse is empty when he arrives, as usual, and he takes his time double checking all the workspaces, his untouched croissant left still flaky and cooled on his desk as he sips his coffee.
Yusuf’s station is littered with vials acting as paperweights for notations that Arthur is familiar with, but doesn’t completely understand; he notices a piece of paper with measurements that he recognises as his own, followed by a series of chemical equations that Arthur hopes tells Yusuf exactly how much formula and sedative he should be receiving.
Not that Arthur is incapable of making those particular calculations himself. It has been close to a decade, after all.
He’s a little unnerved that they have been left so casually in the open, however. As flattered as he maybe should be that Yusuf has such faith that his security capabilities extend so far, he makes a mental note to have a word with the chemist about keeping important details of the team more private.
Ariadne, a true architect, has organised her space into well-defined compartments that remind him of his father’s desk when he was a child, unlabelled with no understandable system, yet everything exactly in its place. She had taken to paradoxes seemingly effortlessly, and had already started exploring the boundaries of negotiable spatial relativity before it had come up in their discussions.
He smiles down at the top blue print, which to an intruder might look like nothing more than a simple floor map.
Arthur skims past Cobb’s work station for several reasons, not least of which is that he knows how Cobb works almost as well as he knows himself, but more out of a complete disinterest in seeing Cobb’s plans.
Inception, whatever he might pretend to the green, fresh faced architect, still frightens Arthur. The last thing he needs is more assumptive – to the point of optimistic – notes from their oh so knowledgeable leader on the malleability of a man’s relationship with his father.
He thinks briefly of his own father, the inexplicable bonds of parent and child that transcend all manner of wrongs. Wrongs which, as much as Arthur hates to admit it, were not entirely his father’s.
(Arthur, he didn't attend his father's funeral, he was busy that day, he twitchy and anxious and full of rage. He thinks, now, he should probably have at least sent flowers.)
So, no, he doesn’t look over Cobb’s notes. Instead he returns to his own desk, takes a bite out of his croissant and sits, begins the arduous albeit satisfying process of organising his notes into categories of persons relevant, followed by a chronological order of when they will be addressed and dealt with.
Arthur’s reputation, after all, is not one of gossip’s inflation.
This includes, of course, his sense of motivation, and consequently Cobb’s arrival at eight-thirty, followed by Ariadne’s arrival at eight-forty-five, come unexpectedly quickly.
At the sound of Cobb’s familiar gait, he pauses only long enough to ensure he isn’t going to be interrupted with new information or requests. On the other hand, when he hears Ariadne’s quiet footsteps he glances up from his notes, offering a friendly look of assurance that isn’t a smile, though still a far cry from the glowers he’s been sending the CCTV shots of Fischer’s face for the past hour.
“Morning Arthur,” she says with her usual wave, dumping her things under her desk and immediately pulling out a small stack of carbon paper from beneath the top blueprint.
Arthur knows it’s her vast imagination and capacity for retaining knowledge fast that’s going to make her a renowned dreamshare Architect, should she choose such a career.
(She will.)
Nonetheless, he takes a moment to appreciate her practicality, which is in his opinion an equally, if not perhaps even more attractive quality. Her lack of hesitancy, her hands-on approach to every curveball he’s thrown her in her quick fire training.
Her apparent unquestioning faith in him is a little alarming, and something Arthur’s not entirely sure what to do with because another person’s trust isn’t something he’s regularly afforded so freely. He’s going to have to do something about it eventually, as whether it’s naivety or a complete lack of self-preservation Ariadne’s going to need to understand that he is happily, willingly a criminal first and foremost.
But not yet, because right now he needs her unflinching trust if they’re ever going to pull this off.
Yusuf arrives bearing fresh teabags for the kettle a few minutes after nine o’clock, an announcement that churns something familiar and sickly in Arthur’s stomach. He doesn’t look up, merely glances at his watch and returns to compiling a record of all the notable events and galas Maurice and Robert Fischer have ever attended together, in the off chance they can recreate a similar one as a dream level.
As the time edges closer to half past nine, Arthur’s internal clock is doing somersaults that have little to do with his circadian rhythms and more a fear that for the first time in his life he’s going to be proven wrong about –
Abruptly, the warehouse door opens with a louder creak than it had for the others.
(That’s a complete lie, only it makes the freezing of Arthur’s muscles feel a little more justified.)
“Well, well, well,” a sly voice teases, “Aren’t we all little busy bees this morning?”
Arthur stares at his laptop screen, the off-white glare of a photograph of two very tense Fischer men standing awkwardly side by side at a charity ball for sick children somewhere in the world that they probably care very little about, and he feels a surge of sympathy for the two men.
“Eames,” Cobb says, and his chair scrapes hard over the floor as he gets up to greet their Forger with several long strides and no doubt a handshake at the end of it.
“Always a pleasure,” Eames says, and Arthur wonders if Cobb can hear that he’s already being made fun of.
Probably not. He’s never been as good at reading the Forger as his wife was.
“Eames, I’d like you to meet Ariadne, our new Architect. Brand new, actually. Ariadne, this is Eames, our Forger.”
Arthur reminds himself as the hand on his laptop keys twitches and the other threatens to break the pen it’s holding, that this is entirely for Ariadne’s benefit, and not a personal dig with a very large spade into his abdomen.
“Eames,” Ariadne says in a breathless voice that means he’s probably kissed her hand, the bastard, “Good to finally meet you.”
“And you, Ariadne,” the Forger replies with his most sincere voice.
Before he can say more, however, Yusuf interrupts them.
“Eames!” he shouts in a commanding, dismissive tone of familiarity that he’s never used with any of the others before, “Get your arse over here so I can measure you. I need to organise your dosages to align with the others’.”
Eames groans audibly, and Ariadne’s snicker turns Arthur’s stomach cold. At a click of his laptop, the photograph on his screen is replaced with a News of the World article discussing said event, including a minor incident that may or may not have taken place at the same table where the Fischers were seated. The words are little more than a blur.
“Coming, mother,” Eames grumbles. “You measured me up two months ago, you know.”
He might glance at Arthur before obeying Yusuf’s demand, or he might not. Arthur wouldn’t know, because Arthur doesn’t look.
Instead Arthur pretends to read more articles that say the exact same thing over and over again, the only thing ever really changing being the date on the top right-hand corner and listens to Yusuf tease Eames about putting on weight in a good-natured tone that makes Arthur wonder how long they’ve known each other.
Eames has always had an uncanny ability to make people feel as if they know the ins and outs of him, of giving the impression that he’s opening the book cover and allowing anyone and everyone to peruse at will.
This is rarely actually the case, but Yusuf’s interaction with Eames panders to none of his usual confidence man’s charms. They are friends, and Arthur is disproportionately annoyed by this.
He sighs quietly to himself to expel some of the bitter taste that isn’t coffee from his throat, flicking through photos now as if through a magazine.
His watch reads nine-forty-eight.
It’s entirely within his right to skip over the first two or three things he has lined up for this morning and jump straight to going under with Ariadne to discuss and practise necessary and unavoidable interactions with projections.
Fifteen minutes, he promises himself. Fifteen minutes, then you’re done.
He should have made it ten.
Twelve minutes later a shadow falls over his desk, almost as familiar as his own, and he purses his lips together, because he can’t quite tell if it’s a smile or a scowl brewing on the surface but he doesn’t really want to offer either right now. He looks up from his laptop with slow, cautious eyes.
Eames is wearing an only vaguely offensive pattern of blue and white, today, which would once have been enough for Arthur to nod encouragingly at him.
His eyes, glittering spider grey and incurious, regard him from a distance that feels more like miles than the mere metre it really is between them. His expression, impassive, doesn’t change as he cocks his head to the side.
“Morning Arthur,” he says coolly, and not unkindly, which Arthur rather wishes it was. “Got anything for me?”
Arthur clears his throat and refuses to look away as he hands over a stuffed file. Their fingers do not touch as Eames takes it, and Arthur, who is eternally grateful, can’t explain the small dip of disappointment in his gut.
“Anything for me, Mr Eames?” he replies. If he sounds cold to anyone else, he doubts Eames won’t hear the tremor in the Mr.
“Not yet,” Eames replies with a silky smile that doesn’t sit right on his face. “Going under this afternoon, are we?”
“After lunch,” Arthur replies, and when he frowns Eames appears to know what’s wrong, because he drops the badly worn smile instantly, and there’s something ugly like shame in his averted eyes.
“I’d better get to it, then,” he says, too loud and too dismissive. He’s sitting down, spreading his open file out across his own desk before Arthur can reply, can tell him not to worry, can tell him to get some sleep, you asshole.
Eames doesn’t sleep on planes, this Arthur knows, just as Eames knows that Arthur doesn’t sleep on trains.
(Except for jobs, he thinks ruefully to himself, and proceeds to glare at a photo of a daze-drunk Robert Fischer waving his hand in front of cameras to try conceal his leggy, blonde date from view.)
.
.
At this very moment in time, Arthur is aware of three very distinct possibilities:
Firstly, that Eames regrets Monaco even more than Arthur does;
Secondly, that they are being watched by the rest of the team who have suddenly developed full mind-reading capabilities and have consequently laid bare all Arthur’s secrets in the last twelve seconds;
Thirdly, that he is not only as in love with Eames as he has ever been, but that he will probably never love anyone who isn’t Eames for the rest of his life.
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The rest of the day is split in an insufferable infuriation of obstacles. Seven chapters that close and drift, and Arthur, he's tired, isn't he? He's really fucking tired and what makes it worse is that Eames saw it the minute he walked through the door.
Nobody has ever noticed Arthur the way Eames does.
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(Now, don’t be angry after you’ve been afraid. That’s the worst kind of cowardice.)
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The dream is too vivid, like an overexposed photograph, the sky burned out. The sun is a blind eye amidst a haze of clouds, and the buildings feel more like New York than they did yesterday.
Ariadne waits in the grey shade of a great, sprawling tree that stands in the centre of a large square courtyard, looking about a million years old. Arthur takes in its squirming roots and withering branches.
At his questioning look, Ariadne shrugs, looking inordinately pleased with herself.
“Ever been to Cadiz?” she asks.
Arthur shrugs, but he isn’t there for the tree, and Ariadne doesn’t seem offended when he doesn’t enquire further.
“I wanted to see if I could make it feel like a dream,” she says. Arthur doesn’t comment on the note of shyness that colours her tone. It sits unnaturally on her tongue, at odds with the outspoken curiosity she usually exudes, though he’s heard it now and again, the gentle fear of rebuke.
He allows her a tight smile as they make their way out of the high walled courtyard and onto a street that gives the impression of Manhattan, though Arthur wonders if she’s ever been there himself because it feels more like Brooklyn.
His projections, held at bay only by his own sense of control, still walk with the air of predators around them.
He takes in the bright texture of the dream, remembers building this sort of world when he first started out, too, bewildered by the possibilities.
“This sort of effect can be achieved much easier with chemicals,” he explains unapologetically, and Ariadne looks more excited than embarrassed by his correction. “It takes a lot more effort on the part of the dreamer to sustain this intensity.”
Ariadne stares around at her world, the green leaves of the trees almost toxic, the skyscrapers that look stretched in their tallness, kissing the overly clean air.
“I don’t feel any different,” she replies, a little defensive.
This time Arthur’s smile is bigger. He probably said the exact same thing to Cobb, first time.
“Not yet you don’t,” he says wryly, enjoys the feel of Cobb’s words on his lips almost as much as the sound of his own on Ariadne’s. “Let’s see the circuit,” he continues before she can argue, gesturing ahead to the roundabout that should lead to a ring road.
Ariadne leads the way, two steps ahead. She seems alert, probably because yesterday she almost provoked a projection and was given a taste of what lay in waiting beneath the calm surface of Arthur’s mind. He doesn’t particularly regret frightening her, though. She might not be going under in Fischer’s mind, but it would be foolish to let her get blasé about what she’s dealing with.
Arthur allows himself a moment to revel in the sheer joy of the dreamscape, all the overly eager details of a new Architect flexing her muscles. There are birds that his subconscious certainly hasn’t put there, a flock of starlings that shouldn’t really be anything more than background noise but here are scattered and chirping, their sleek feathers glittering in the sunlight.
He’s corrected her once on her enthusiasm for wildlife. She had simply shrugged off his criticism with a guilty smile and said, “What? My dad’s a birdwatcher.”
Taking note of the roads, he pauses, frowning. There’s something wrong with the road, the psychedelic twinge of the dream almost managing to block the problem from view. When he realises, though, his smile splits into a grin and he jogs the few steps to catch up with Ariadne, who’s waiting for him on the street corner that bleeds into a beltway a little too abruptly to be natural.
She’s wearing a strange expression, one he can’t yet read because unlike some his people reading takes time and careful mental notation. Unlike some he can’t simply –
“Are you ok?” Ariadne asks, and Arthur feels the unexpected frown on his face before he loosens it into a calm, politely interested expression.
(It’s the dream, he tells himself, Just the dream throwing you off.)
(It isn’t, of course, but Arthur is a stubborn man.)
“You ever lived in Britain?” he asks, and Ariadne is suspiciously unsurprised by the question. She shakes her head slowly, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Australia?”
Again, she shakes her head.
“Why?” she asks, dragging out the single syllable like it should be three.
“Your road signs are positioned for left-hand traffic,” he says with a note of admonishment. “I’m American. My projections are automatically going to be right-hand traffic drivers.”
Ariadne, without batting an eyelid, checks her watch.
“Yeah,” she says, lips wrapped around her words in a smile, “But it took you almost fifteen minutes to realise.”
Arthur, who very much does bat an eyelid or twelve, stares at her with unashamed incredulity. Ariadne shrugs, and visibly tries not to look too much like a cat rolling in cream.
“Ok,” Arthur says slowly, doesn’t want to give her too much lest she get cocky.
He can’t help the gut feeling she probably deserves to feel a bit cocky.
Of course, today of all days Arthur is going to be easier to fool. Today of all days Arthur is distracted, and as close to off his game as he’s ever been.
For a moment he fears Ariadne knows, has maybe even noticed and that’s why the sudden games. But she cocks her head to the side, eyebrows quirked as she waits for praise or punishment, doesn’t seem particularly bothered which one she gets.
“Very good,” he says, nods and stares at the cars on the road, their gleaming windscreens and purring engines and the fact that none of them are concerned by the backs of the road signs where there should be directions.
“So, you’ve already figured out some of the perks of distracting the subject with pretty lights and colours.”
Ariadne, to her credit, doesn’t push for more than he’s already given her. Seeks only more information, and Arthur feels a grounding swell of pride for his student.
“What’s the risk in an actual job setting of the subject being freaked out by a psychedelic dreamscape, though?” she asks.
They’re still standing on the street corner, traffic rumbling past and incredibly loud birds in the trees.
“Depends on the mark,” he replies coolly. “If you’ve got a part time partaker in ecstasy, they’re going to feel pretty at home, and it actually makes it easier. Or someone with a vivid imagination. This is the sort of dreamscape that would be believable to someone like Eames. Someone like me would need a dreamscape as close to reality as is possible.”
It’s not until he’s finished and Ariadne pauses a second too long before replying that he realises Ariadne only met Eames about an hour ago. She has no idea what someone like Eames means. He interrupts before Ariadne can finish whatever train of thought is clocking in her mind.
“Not that it would be so easy to break into either of our minds. Impossible or logical, we’re too experienced to make it an easy ride.”
“You’ve worked with him before.”
If she meant it to be a question, it was a terrible effort. Ariadne’s eyes, a warm shade of brown brightened by the intelligence that glitters there, narrow ever so slightly.
Or maybe Arthur is imagining things.
(This would not be today’s greatest revelation.)
“Yes. Several times,” Arthur replies, because lying would be futile and possibly even stupider than telling the truth.
The questions might as well be written across her forehead, so Arthur cuts in a second time.
Just in case more truths slip out.
“Let’s get ourselves a car. I want to see the ring road. Did you look into the diverted traffic I asked about yesterday?”
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Here is something true:
Arthur is loyal out of pride, principle, and vanity.
It is also in his nature.
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Here is something false:
Arthur loves unconditionally.
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They all leave for lunch.
It’s a respite he is afforded every day, and he eases into it more smoothly than ever.
Eames is the last to leave, his eyes too loud, his footsteps too quiet.
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Arthur works through his lunch break because he doesn’t each lunch.
This is a periodic habit he has been cultivating for almost ten years that, like a sprawling garden of tricky thorns, needs vigilant attention.
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Arthur’s not entirely sure how it happens, but one minute he is mapping the annual routes of the Fischers’ travels as the soft chatter of the rest of the team settles back into a working rhythm, and the next there is a turkey club sandwich next to his left elbow, as well as a large bar of white chocolate and a bottle of water.
.
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Eames is hunched over his desk when Arthur looks around, and the prowling smugness that surrounds him like a dazzling membrane is so familiar it isn’t quite enough to confirm his suspicions.
Not that Arthur needs them confirming, of course, because it’s no coincidence.
(They don’t exist.)
.
.
Something unimportant:
By the time Eames and Arthur meet, Eames has been, among other things, a Forger, a prostitute, a contract killer, an addict, and an inmate at HMP Wandsworth.
It’s not that Eames doesn’t love painting and sex and guns and drugs and, well, there’s very little to love about Wandsworth except the contacts it buys him, but dreams offer him all of this without the spot checks and lack of privacy and high alert showers.
Actually, all of these things are distinct possibilities with Arthur around.
Still, Eames enjoys them a lot more now.
.
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Something important:
Arthur is unhappy until he is twenty years old.
(Then there is the gradual inclination of limbo, but not Limbo.)
Arthur is actually happy when he is twenty-five years old.
Arthur is happy on a Friday in Seville, when he has a belly full of sangria and has just dumped an entire carafe of orange juice all over Eames’ head, and it is very warm and Arthur laughs very loudly.
(This is very important.)
.
.
Mr Saito’s arrival, which had not been anticipated for some days, is a surprisingly welcome disruption to what might otherwise have been for Arthur an arduously silent day of staring inanely at a laptop screen until he goes blind.
Instead there is planning. He writes things in his moleskin and Cobb writes things on the whiteboard. Ariadne even draws things on the whiteboard.
Yusuf doesn’t write anything, because his formulas, while interesting, threaten migraines at their very mention.
(And that’s only in their basic form.)
Eames doesn’t write anything, either.
(This is probably because Arthur banned him from writing on anything that other people have to read about four and a half years ago.)
He does, however, make several vital contributions to the discussion, which Arthur writes down the same as the others, tilting his book further closed in his lap when he catches a pair of curious grey eyes drifting in the direction of his pen.
There is a mantra in Arthur’s head that makes it difficult to contribute much, mostly because the mantra includes the word impossible three times and asshole twice.
He jots his notes and shares a private word with Saito about fund negotiation while Eames and Ariadne make tea and coffee for everyone, snickering together over the hissing kettle. They return with a tray of mugs and beeline for Arthur.
“Eames offered to show me what he’s working on,” Ariadne chirps, sounding all too delighted. “You said you need to catch up on everyone’s progress. Want to come too?”
“Did I say that?” Arthur asks.
He doesn’t particularly like the look of scowling mockery that Ariadne throws him as she hands over his coffee.
.
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The dream is soft edged, indistinct.
It feels like it’s been blanketed, so that all that remains is the glancing of silvery light from the mirrors that surround them.
This is Eames’ canvas, muted and gentle, so that the only thing really in sharp focus, the only colour to be found of any worth, is himself and the skin he slips into like a cool river.
Ariadne stares about her, silently horrified by the wasted potential of dreamspace.
Arthur knows, because he’s chided Eames’ laziness plenty before. The first time, he’d been stupid enough to ask if Eames could build for himself.
(He’s learned to be less stupid, over the years.)
“Has anyone thought to explain forgery to you before, Ariadne?” Eames asks, hands on his hips, glancing archly at Arthur with a smirk.
Arthur rolls his eyes and allows Eames to pretend it’s negligence that holds Arthur’s tongue, and not the fact that the last time Arthur tried to articulate the finer intricacies of forgery Eames accidentally spilled a rather expensive glass of merlot all over Arthur’s crisp white shirt.
Arthur just crosses his arms over his chest, nods at Ariadne’s wandering gaze as she takes a wild stab.
“It’s in the name, right? Imitation. You create mirages.”
Eames’ indulgent smile is toothy, almost a leer. He inclines his head like a predator angling to pounce.
Ariadne shifts her feet, and the ground for all that it looks smooth crackles like gravel under her weight.
“But I don’t understand how that’s any different to the dreams in general,” she confesses with a scrutinising glare.
Her eyes rake over Eames’ bulky frame, as if expecting him to grow scales or sprout wings.
“Well any tourist could come in and dream,” Eames scoffs with enthusiasm, and Arthur rather thinks it’s a futile jab, given that they are unconscious and Saito can’t hear him. “But could they necessarily build, like you can, hmm?”
Ariadne visibly considers his question, and Arthur is reminded all over again why he likes this girl so much. The light powdering of her makeup crinkles in her brow.
Eames appears to like what he sees, too, because he takes pity on her silence, and explains by example.
Arthur has tried to catch the molten shift of Eames’ forms before.
(Actually, he’s been trying very hard for years, ever since the day they met.)
(Actually, Eames had even once tried to explain why Arthur will never actually see the naked change, the brain’s natural inability to perceive the true transition of the illusion, delayed neurons and overactive optic nerves, but eventually he’d stumbled onto the term perception filter, jolting himself into a fit of giggles that he didn't deign explain to Arthur.)
He tries again anyway, now, but just as Eames promised, in the space of his blinks, Eames’ form shivers invisibly into that of another.
It’s a testament to Eames’ skills of observation that his forgery of Cobb reflects that of the current version waiting for them up top, and not the original pre-Mal’s Death academic he’s seen far more of over the years. He’s got it all, down to the more recent creases in his brow, the new, stooping curve of his shoulders.
Ariadne’s startled delight is every bit as wonderful as Arthur would hope it to be. Beneath Cobb’s stern jaw and creased brow, he can practically feel Eames’ preening.
(It’s amazing just how much of Eames’ presence Arthur can still feel, even now. Or maybe it’s not.)
“Any dreamer could create a mirage of another face, enough that from a distance, for a few minutes at most, a mark might think they’re seeing someone else,” Eames says using Cobb’s stolen voice, the stilted, gritty cadences, so exact, which Arthur really shouldn’t find surprising by now but somehow still does.
Eames continues, his hands just the right level of animated, hinting at frantic.
“But just like buildings that are only dreamt of, not built, the façade would crumble under analysis. If you tried to enter a building only imagined in a dream, you’d find it two dimensional, less than a hologram. And if someone who can’t forge tries to pull on another face, it would be no better than an ill-fitting clown mask. You certainly couldn’t touch them.”
The implication is clear, the invitation even clearer.
Ariadne strides towards Eames without hesitation, arms outstretched, her fingers grasping his arms tight enough to pull him from a cliff’s edge, then softer, reaching up to touch Cobb’s face.
Eames stands stock still, probably the only real indicator that this isn’t Cobb at all that Arthur can find.
Arthur stares, transfixed by all the details of an art he’s only ever pretended to comprehend half the time. There are so many variables involved in forgery, too many that are impervious to predictive statistics for Arthur’s analytical brain to accept, and it’s been months since he’s had the chance to observe Eames in action under the PASIV.
Over a year, now, in fact.
“But I know you’re forging,” Ariadne says stubbornly, standing back again to take in all of Eames – all of Cobb, rumple suited, squinting. Arthur almost smiles.
When Cobb’s bright blue eyes find his, he holds the stare. There’s a faint glow of a blush high on Cobb’s tan cheeks that Arthur is certain belongs to Eames.
“How come I don’t see through it when I know?” the young woman demands.
“Same reason dreams don’t necessarily explode even when the subject is made aware of the dream,” Arthur says.
Ariadne’s eyebrows rise considerably, still staring at Eames. They’re yet to discuss these subtle intricacies, though now is not the time, not when Arthur and Eames so regularly disagree on anything more than the basic mechanics of dreaming; Eames sneering at Arthur's bare sterility, Arthur scowling at Eames' romantics.
In a flurry of movement Eames reclaims his own face and offers up his progress on Browning to the floor for discussion, as well as the face and shape of a pretty slip of a junior manager with an abundance of single-mindedness and a penchant for scrunchies who noticeably catches Robert Fischer’s attention during meetings.
(“Just in case, of course. Can’t be too careful, now, can we?”)
Arthur spends a lot of time nodding along to Ariadne’s enthusiastic insights, and when Eames dismisses his attempt at congratulating him on successfully mastering two forgeries during his short internship at Fischer-Morrow with a brash comment about logic and duty and just doing my bit to earn my share, Arthur ignores the hot flare of frustration that scalds his insides.
.
.
(The burning lingers when he wakes up, like a tight blister, itching.)
.
.
(I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.)
.
.
“Are you ok?”
The question blindsides him.
These days it’s easy to forget that Cobb was something akin to his best friend at some point in their lives, before Arthur gave up everything.
It’s easy to pretend Cobb doesn’t know how much Arthur really gave up, how much he noticed, how much he still notices, sometimes, when the fancy takes him.
But then Cobb glances up across the warehouse and back down to Arthur’s desk, which he’s leaning on with both hands, and Arthur doesn’t need to check to know Cobb’s eyes had found Eames, however briefly.
It's in the guilty shade of blue he blinks so innocently.
“Is there anything you need, Cobb?” Arthur asks coolly, and knows that if Cobb is still half the friend he once was, he’ll know Arthur isn’t ungrateful for the attention he’s being afforded, but is only tactfully ignoring it until he can find an appropriate time to appreciate it.
“Not today,” Cobb replies, looking defeated. “Don’t stay too late.”
He leaves Arthur to his research.
He seems to know better than to look over his shoulder as he walks away.
.
.
There is a missing piece.
.
.
It’s the only piece that really matters.
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.
Did you hear about Eames? the text had read, ten months ago, when Arthur finally lost everything he gave up.
.
.
Arthur is in Riyadh when he receives it, feels frost in his arteries that his heart can’t thaw.
He knows the number, knows a face and a name he can put to it. The problem is, it’s a face and a name that he generally doesn’t trust with anything more than the broadest of gossip.
He replies, less than short and less then sweet. Then he waits.
He waits four minutes, during which time he manages to track Eames’ location to a lavish hotel in Monaco, where the casinos are large, the bets larger still.
It’s been a while since Arthur last checked up on him.
(It gets harder to stop every time.)
There’s a considerable amount of trouble that Eames could get himself into in Monaco, but none he can’t just as easily get himself out of with anything more than a light slap on the wrist and a disapproving glare.
(He’s gotten worse from Arthur, for Christ’s sake.)
Arthur waits four minutes, like a dream, stretched languid, agonising. He’s gifted with three gems.
Walker-Stoneley Job ruffled a lot of feathers.
Frankie Moran’s boys grabbed him in Vantaa.
Malcolm says it took him over a week to get out.
A further four minutes are enough to confirm the very recent, very fiery death of Frankie Moran, ever a friendly enemy to the Russians in times of need.
They’re enough to confirm a two-week gap in his timeline of Eames’ whereabouts, who finished Walker-Stoneley several hundred thousand pounds richer on a cold Friday afternoon, and checked onto his flight to Monaco from Tallinn two days ago.
(Almost three weeks later.)
He’d used his Bradley Winston identity, one that would have flagged Arthur’s warning signs if he had made the effort to check before now.
(If he’d had the courage.)
He books a flight to Monaco, texts Cobb from the taxi he hails to the airport.
Personal business. Will email job details tomorrow.
.
.
(The last time Arthur saw Eames before Paris it was his silhouette, shaking, haloed by the backdrop of sparkling Monaco. It was through a fog of tears, with his heart in his throat and blood in his mouth.)
.
.
He washed the blood out the same day, but his heart’s never really found its way back to its rightful place.
.
.
This is how the day ends:
.
.
Mr Saito and Cobb leave together, heads bowed in tense discussion.
Probably waltzing the circular debate of how exactly Saito hopes to eradicate a headhunt that drove Cobb all the way to the other side of the world.
Ariadne goes home earlier than she might like to, but only because she lives with girls who will jabber a lot of accusations in rapid French about dates and kisses and whatever the French for dirty stopover is if she gets back too late.
Yusuf packs his things, nods, mumbles something to Eames. Slips out of the door with the shady curved shoulders of one who is sneaking off somewhere. Arthur doesn’t worry.
Then, finally, there are whispers.
(The whispers are inside Arthur’s head. They are hissing snakes that writhe like guilt, bite like anxiety.)
Arthur’s neck is stiff, hunched over a stack of notes that seems to breed every time he looks away.
Arthur feels sick, because he ate all the white chocolate from lunch without meaning to.
The warehouse lights aren’t strong. Half the building is engulfed in darkness, the other half dressed in greyish shadows like silk.
Arthur, ignoring the hissing writhing biting snakes quite valiantly, hears Eames’ approach, a creaking hush of feet inclined to tread lightly. A thief’s step.
When he puts a hand on the desk, large and weathered and tanned, Arthur stares at it.
“Goodnight Arthur,” he says, inflections bizarrely clear when not muffled by a pillow or Arthur’s own chest.
The day might have ended here.
(It doesn’t.)
Instead Arthur looks up, takes hold of Eames’ wrist before he can turn away, pretends Eames doesn’t flinch. He holds steady.
Eames looks down at him. He’s painted with ghostly warehouse light and the kiss of Kenyan sunshine. He looks good, and this should make Arthur happy.
(It doesn’t.)
Eames has always worn his attractiveness like a second glance.
This space, right here, right now, might once have been filled only by a small gasp of breath at the collision of their mouths.
“Eames,” Arthur says, tighter than his grip on the Forger’s wrist, where the bones feel thick and weak.
“Is this what it’s going to be like?” Arthur asks, sharper than the pain in his temples, “For the next – god knows how long?”
Eames, who is pedantic and facetious and cornered, asks, “Like what, exactly?”
Arthur, who has never pandered to this man’s games, stops playing.
“Since when did we – avoid each other, Eames?”
The answer, quite plainly, is since ten months ago, but that’s not what he means.
Eames licks his lips; the wet, lingering lick that looks like seduction because Eames has been cultivating his tells for years, the same as Arthur. Arthur reads him like a book; albeit one written in a language he doesn’t know the nouns of.
“I don’t want to talk about this now, Arthur,” Eames says, pulls a little harder, glowers at Arthur’s vice grip on his arm. “This is not the time,” he mutters through gritted teeth.
Somewhere deep in his gut, or maybe between his ribs where he can’t reach, Arthur knows this, too.
“I can’t work like this, Eames,” he says, dangerous enough to be a threat, desperate enough to be something else.
It’s no lie.
Eames regards Arthur with an enforced measure of disdain so faint it’s almost impassive.
Active disregard or idle disinterest, it is a lie Eames wears like a crown.
“You didn’t show much interest in listening last time,” he replies.
His voice, delicately clipped and razor sharp, falls between them, words hanging like tattered threads that once held something aloft, something important and long lost.
“Eames,” Arthur splutters, feels the phantom splitting of his lip under Eames’ hard knuckles, the stinging tears that were barely pain, mostly betrayal. “You sent me away.”
The cold washing memory of his dismissal that felt more like banishment has never really left him, just settled into something bone deep and impenetrable over the past ten months.
Eames breathes hard through his nose, stares sharply to the left, to the pitch emptiness of the far end of the warehouse, far away from Arthur, who memorises his sleek profile all over again, as if he wouldn’t know it in a crowd of millions already.
“Yes,” Eames says, all razors gone until he is deflated, raspy, and when he faces Arthur again the words come out ugly and strangled. “And you left.”
Arthur blinks, rapid and prickling.
The words needle him so closely, their brittle points snapping inside his skin, that it takes a few seconds for them to find their way to his bloodstream. When they do, the vast chimera of guilt in his chest rears its terrible head, stealing all the words out of his mouth and back down his hot, dry throat.
Because Arthur has never heard such a vulnerable confession, not from Eames, perhaps not from anyone, and he’d thought all he ever wanted was a little vulnerability from this unflappably charming man, but now it’s here he wants to cover it back up like an aching, ugly, infected wound.
Eames is saying I needed you¸ the only way he probably knows how. With blank, glazed eyes and a slack, indifferent mouth. He’s saying I didn't mean it, which Arthur knew all along, even if he pretended not to.
Most of all, though, Eames is just saying You left me.
And Arthur, blinded by the blatant betrayal in Eames’ forceful indifference, hears it like a scream.
You left me alone.
.
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Eames leaves, his footsteps whispering over the ground, and Arthur holds himself steady against the tide of pitiful hate that swarms him like a plague.
.
.
(Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.)
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.
The day ends.
.
.
The world turns.
.
.
A few short weeks later, Maurice Fischer is dead.
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.